I want to yell obscenities, not because I’m pissed off or anything, I just think that the world is deserving of obscenities.

Three things from last night:

• The way the length of the room contracted as she bounded towards us
• The way my plane of vision fissured into about four different planes, like those pseudo-3D Nikon cameras.
• How I broke my cardinal rule of not getting intoxicated around people I don’t trust.

It was really stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Oh yeah, the futility thing. It was all so crystal clear while I was watching “Traffic”, but it’s all kind of murky now. In any case, they aren’t kidding when they say no good goes unpunished. I mean, nothing is ever as simple as you can put it in words, but it’s like you have to decide between being/doing right, and being alive. The path of righteousness literally leads to crucifixion, or I suppose, in this day and age, a bullte in the head. That’s why the character Javier—I thought he was such a bad ass. He knew he’d run a great chance of getting killed, but he did the right thing anyway and he didn’t even take credit for it (at least, as he was explaining it to his partner’s widow.)

The black American cop also reinforced my belief… The key witness excoriates him for knowing that what he was doing was futile, and yet still doing it. It’s like the positive way to look at the myth of Sisyphus. Even Mother Teresa and Gandhi believed it. What you do is insignificant, but it’s important that you do it. No one person can make a huge change in the world, but he/she can certainly make crucial little changes. You really, really shouldn’t get caught up in vainglory. It’s a terrible waste of energy and I really think it cheapens your accomplishments.

But everyone has their duty to fulfill. There are good people in the world, and people who are willing to risk their lives in order to defend [the] good. It’s certainly a rare sight, but just the knowledge that it is possible in this ugly, sordid world of ours is certainly inspiring.

But I really don’t know what it is that made me think of her. I suppose it’s really that primordial question—what did she see in me? More so than with anyone else, I think, I really ponder it. I came across a little note she had written me, being grateful that I had opened up a bit to her and hopeful that I would trust her. Mostly I think of her as the older sister I never had, but still, I did have a crush on her. I wonder what her life is like now…

Perhaps that’s the only reason to keep on living. At least for me. I want to prove people right. I want to pay back their belief in me, that there really is something there inside me, smouldering and shining bright. I don’t know why, I know it’s not healthy, but I cannot bear to live my life only for myself. And with painful irony, I cannot bear to live my life as an obligation to other people. I thought I was damned to fluctuate between these two extremes of misery, but remembering her, I realize (as always), there is a third path. There is a difference between demanding of me and believing in me. It is truly a fine difference, but that’s all I need to keep going. I mean, this is something five years old and perhaps no longer true at this moment, but it is enough that it was true once upon a time. I’m sure you know… Thank you for believing in me.